Some time ago I wrote an essay on Clive Wearing, the British musician and conductor who contracted a disease twenty years ago that left him with only his short-term memory. His adjustment has been long and difficult, his disability profound—trapped in an endless present that lasts only a few seconds at a time (read the piece for more of the details of his strange plight).
One of the reasons he is still alive is the power of his love for his wife Deborah, and hers for him. Despite all the words I’ve written on the subject, it’s hard to convey the profundity of his disability and yet the persistence of his extraordinary intelligence and personality through it all.
But I recently discovered through my You Tube forays that snippets of the otherwise unobtainable documentary that originally prompted me to write the Wearing piece have been posted there. So, since a picture might indeed be worth the more than thousand or so words I’ve already written on the subject, here’s one of those segments, filmed some years ago:
[And here are links to many more Wearing videos posted at You Tube, if you’re interested.]
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely
October 11th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
“I LOVE DEBORAH FOR EVER X EVER.”
It wasn’t, and won’t be, but always just “is”.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Hello Neo,
I just can’t imagine being robbed of your life and only having a vague sense of it being gone. It’s like living forever in twilight, neither awake nor asleep, but floating somewhere in a kind of limbo where you do the same things over and over. Perhaps even more terrible is being entirely lucid and in full command of your intelligence while this state is being done to you…
October 11th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
This sounds similar to the chapter called “The Last Hippie” from Oliver Sacks’ book “An Anthropologist on Mars.” Very much recommended.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:22 am
HI neo
I am a music therapist. As part of my internship I worked with a woman who had severe short-term memory loss, comparable to Clive Wearing, and also due to encephalitis. Your comments on Clive were the first I had ever heard of him. While researching further for my paper, I ran across this website
http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html
which contains a fairly lengthy documentary on Clive and Deborah. The teaching modules are free and accessible to anyone, you just have to sign up.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Oops, so much for anonymity. I was formerly “futuremarinesmom”
October 12th, 2007 at 12:26 am
By the way, my hubby and I are excited to be going to hear Oliver Sacks in person next week, speaking on “Why the brain loves music.” He is one of my heroes.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:04 am
susan: I once wrote a note to Sacks asking him a question, and he replied with a four-page long handwritten letter. I was impressed with the time and trouble he took to answer.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Reminds me of the film “Memento” from a few years back. What an awful nightmare to live through in real life.
October 15th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Neo
The music therapists in our area attempted to get Dr. Sacks for a reception while he is in our area. Unfortunately, he wasn’t allowed enough time by his publicists, but his assistant sent us a nice email saying she would forward our request to Dr. Sacks because he does not own a computer. Gotta love the guy! And hence the handwritten letter that you were privileged to receive. I hope you treasure it.